With a growing trend for brides to use home-grown British flowers in bouquets, Ruth Campbell talks to a talented florist who specialises in a relaxed, natural English country style and finds out what she would suggest for Meghan Markle

SUSAN Dobson is looking out of her window, watching a jay in the garden: “He’s burying peanuts, so he can come and take them in winter,” she says. As well as an array of birds, countless wild creatures, from hedgehogs to toads, along with an abundance of bees and butterflies, are drawn to her two-acre plot which is overflowing with beautiful scented British flowers, shrubs and herbs and includes a recently-planted woodland.

Susan swapped her career as a medical secretary to follow her dream and run her own florist’s business from home three years ago, with most, if not all, of the blooms and foliage she uses coming from her stunning cottage garden.

With more people interested in the provenance of everything from their food to clothing and wine, Susan offers North Yorkshire clients hand-picked seasonal flowers, foliage and herbs lovingly tended and grown, virtually on their doorstep, rather than being flown in from thousands of miles away.

Her lifelong passion for nature oozes out of the loose and rustic floral arrangements she creates for weddings and special events: “I love wildlife and being outdoors, connecting with the soil and seeing things grow,” she explains. Having embraced a pesticide-free approach, Susan’s garden has developed an eco-system all of its own: “It looks after itself pest-wise. There are slugs and snails, but the toads, frogs and hedgehogs are predators and so balance things out.”

As British-grown flowers enjoy a revival, most people who come to her Yorkshire Dales Flower Company are after something different from the usual High Street offerings. Her natural, relaxed signature country style has graced woodland weddings at the luxury Bivouac glamping site at Swinton Park and festival-style ceremonies at Richmond’s eco-friendly Natural Retreats.

She also decorates more traditional venues such as the Old Swan Hotel in Harrogate and the Old Deanery in Ripon: “I’ve done everything from barns to marquees, tepees and hotels. Shape-wise, I like wild, loose and free arrangements, but they still must have some structure to them, you need to have some technique in design.”

When she moved to the Georgian cottage, where her business is based, with builder husband Brian 26 years ago, Susan started to transform and extend the garden, which is set in glorious countryside, with mature native trees, hedges, including beech and box. She created huge flower beds, interspersed with grassy paths and hornbeam arches, along with an attractive herb garden.

Inspired by her green-fingered grandfather and parents, gardening had been a huge passion for Susan ever since she was a small child and, although she enjoyed her job as a medical secretary, she began to yearn to do something different.

“I was happy but had other things in me I wanted to get out. Many years ago I did consider running a plant nursery. Then, as I got older I thought that if I don’t go for it now I never will.”

She decided she needed to learn more before embarking on a career as a florist so went off to college to study garden history and literature and then did a course in natural floristry.

Susan, who now employs one part-time member of staff, as well as regularly calling on other freelancers for help with weddings, has never looked back: “I love what I do, it’s a different way of working, not nine to five, and my previous job has helped me with the admin side of running a business.

She is also runs workshops and gives talks to gardening groups throughout the Dales: “There are no quiet times, if I’m not out in the garden or doing flowers, I’m meeting people, planning and running workshops. I love connecting with people over gardening and plants and sharing ideas.”

Brides can even come to her to learn how to do their own flowers. “I encourage people to have a go. If it doesn’t work out it doesn’t matter, you have learnt from that,” she says. We have come a long way since wedding button-hole sprays were traditionally carnations or roses, with the stem wrapped in tin foil, says Susan, who inspires people to be more quirky and imaginative.

She advises budding florists to find something unusual, to make their arrangements stand apart: “Look at what there is outside in your garden. I love to use different foliage from the wood, like ferns, twigs and pine cones, larch, spruce and berries that I can put with hellebores and crab apples to bring that natural look. I also use dried seed heads.”

Susan’s arrangements are all individual, tailored to the particular client: “Quite often brides like to include something personal, like a photograph or a special flower to remember a loved one by. Flowers have the ability to trigger memories and associations.”

And while the flowers are undoubtedly the star of the show, she enjoys using charming props, such as milk churns, barrels, baskets, crates and ladders, Victorian copper pans and washtubs to enhance her creations.

“I have always loved antiques and vintage things, and enjoy finding ways of using them in floristry.”

The bridal season gives an enormous choice of flowers, says Susan, who uses plants from other British growers should she need to supplement her own. But even in autumn and winter there are lots to choose from.

Before the Seventies, when the British flower industry went into to decline, home-grown flowers accounted for 80 per cent of UK sales. Today they make up only ten per cent.

But we don’t need to rely on imported flowers, says Susan, who feels the increased demand for local produce is starting to have a positive effect on the flower industry.

And she thinks North Yorkshire is particularly well-served: “It is a huge county with different soil types and climates. There are certain areas which have not been intensively farmed and it’s also a rich area for wild flowers.”

l Susan thinks Meghan’s bouquet would look stunning made from seasonal British flowers such as peonies, apple and cherry blossom, Ranunculus, anenomes, lilac and sweet peas.

Peonies are one of Meghan’s favourite flowers, so it is likely her floral bouquet will include these fragrant blooms, which are in season in May.

Other flowers available to brides in May include lupins, Alchemilla mollis, iris, antirrhinum, Dicentra, aquilegia, narcissi, bluebells, mock orange, lily of the valley, tulips, viburnum, Weigela, astrantia, and Ornithogalum. “The viburnum and Weigela also provide foliage,” says Susan.

  • yorkshiredalesflowers.co.uk